Collard Green Wraps with Chickpea Cashew Curry

Wraps have always been one of my favorite lunches- so many varieties of fillings, and easy to roll up and pack for school/work. However, I’ve never really gotten too creative with the actual wrap, besides maybe the flavor or “wheatiness” of my tortilla. Thanks to Instagram, my new food browsing addiction, I came up with the idea of making a collard greens wrap! Since I created my Instagram account for this blog (username: cloudthyme), I’ve been not only posting my own recipe photos, but also random food experiments in the kitchen, or delicious meals when I eat out. Furthermore, I’ve been able to get a lot of great inspiration from fellow instagrammers and bloggers who post ridiculously gorgeous and creative food pictures and recipes. But Pinterest, I still love you too!

Anyway, once I decided I was going to try a wrap using collard greens, I had to think of some kind of flavorful filling to balance out the fresh but slightly bitter taste of the greens. Since I have really never experimented with curries, I decided to give a vegan curry salad a try. I am a big fan of the chicken curry at Whole Foods, because it is only spicy in the sweet kind of way, and that is what I went for here. The chickpea, cashew, and tahini base gives the curry its hearty, creamy consistency and the veggies give the wrap the crunch and freshness. I added currants to make this curry even sweeter, and it goes so well with the curry and ginger spices. Lately I have been trying to add more spices and fresh herbs instead of salt, and this is a perfect example of a dish that hardly needs any salt added. There is enough flavor and spice in itself, especially with the tahini and fresh ginger. If you like your curry even spicier, feel free to amp it up with cayenne or hot peppers.

Once I learned a couple of tips, I was surprised at how easy it turned out to be to wrap this curry up into a collard green. First, you want to make sure your curry is thick, so if it is too runny, add more chickpeas and mix together well. As you will see in the recipe, I blended most of the chickpeas and cashews first, but then kept some whole to make the curry more chunky and textured. The other big tip is to trim down the stem of the collard green. This blog has a great photo-by-photo instructions for how to do this (although I didn’t even soak the leaves). Basically, you just cut off the end of the stem and then carefully shave down the stem along the center of the leaf until it is flush (or close to) with the leaf. This prevents the leaf from splitting as your roll it up like a burrito around your curry filling.

Now, onto the actual recipe, which as you may notice, is appropriately green in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day!! I am part Irish at least. 🙂

Ingredients (for 4 wraps):

• 4 large collard green wraps
• 1 can + 1/2 cup chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup cashew pieces, divided
• 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped coursely
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 1 tsp curry powder (may use more)
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 large carrot or 2 smaller carrots, chopped into slices then quartered
• 1 small bunch scallions, white and light green parts thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup currants
• optional: salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Prep collard greens by trimming the stem, both by cutting off the end and slicing the entire stem so it is flush with the leaf (see notes above).
2. Place 1 can chickpeas, 1/4 cup cashew pieces, ginger, tahini, spices, and water into a food processor and pulse to combine. Pulse until creamy. You may need to use more or less water depending on your desired consistency.
3. Transfer cashew/chickpea mixture to a medium sized bowl and add in the 1/2 cup chickpeas, 1/4 cup cashew pieces, carrot, scallions, and currants.  Mix well.
4. Place a heaping 1/2 cup of curry onto the middle of each leaf.
5. Roll from the stem/bottom up, tucking in the sides as you go, like a burrito. Slice diagonally down the middle, creating two halves from each wrap.
6. If taking to go, wrap in foil or plastic wrap to keep secure. Or, enjoy immediately!